


Jessica Day's New Popularity

by FollowMyLead



Series: Pepperwood's Rise to Fame [1]
Category: New Girl
Genre: F/M, Fame, Fluff, Nick Miller Author, Pepperwood Chronicles;, Principal Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:28:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26940664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FollowMyLead/pseuds/FollowMyLead
Summary: “Is it true that Jessica Night is based off of you?”Jess doesn’t know what to say; none of the students have ever noticed before. On the one hand, it’s not a lie and it is pretty easy to put the pieces together, but on the other hand, history has taught her what happens when her students discover her connection to Nick Miller and his book.
Relationships: Jessica Day/Nick Miller
Series: Pepperwood's Rise to Fame [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965898
Comments: 5
Kudos: 47





	Jessica Day's New Popularity

**Author's Note:**

> The "Young Adult" episode (6x18) always made me wonder what would happen if her students realized Jessica Night was based on Jess, or why it wasn't acknowledged. So I indulged. This takes place between season 6 and season 7. Enjoy!

Principal Day treks towards the entrance of the school carrying the usual load of her purse, tote bag of supplies and the quarter’s budget binder. She’s halfway up the courtyard when three girls approach her stopping her in her tracks. The don’t say anything, just look between each other urging one another to speak up. Jess breaks the silence.

“Good morning, girls. Can I help you with something?” 

The taller, freckled one finally speaks up “Is it true, Ms. Day?”

Jess is still confused. She looks between the three of them and then notices that they’re each holding their own copy of The Pepperwood Chronicles.

“Is what true?”

The shortest student with braided hair answers “Is it true that Jessica Night is based off of you?” She asks gesturing wildly to the book.

Jess doesn’t know what to say; none of the students have ever noticed before. On the one hand, it’s not a lie and it is pretty easy to put the pieces together, but on the other hand, history has taught her what happens when her students discover her connection to Nick Miller and his book. Jess tries to evade. 

“Pphh, what makes you think that?” She asks, hoping the crack in her voice doesn’t give her away.

“Well your name is Jessica Day and her name is Jessica Night. _And_ Nick Miller mentioned you in his dedication,” as the freckled girl shows her the page that the author himself dedicated to her and Anthony Rizzo when he first got back from New Orleans. It seemed like so long ago.

She knew there was no point in lying about it. “Yeah, Nick and I were pretty good friends when he wrote the book, so he based Jessica Night off me.”

Jess holds her breath with anticipation not knowing what to expect next. The three middle schoolers begin fawning and talking amongst each other saying that they knew it, and that it was obvious. Jess starts to move towards her office again, but they step in her way once more.

“That is SO cool, Principal Day. Or Principal _Night_ , now.”

“No, no, Principal Day is my name,” Jess tries to hide her nerves behind a laugh. She’s dealt with her students getting too comfortable with her before, and she’s still working on finding the line between principal and princi _pal_. 

“So are you still friends with him?” The third girl, who was at first quiet but now has joined in the excitement, asked.

Jess is stumped again. She doesn’t know what would happen if she said that the up-and-coming author of the trending young adult novel, is her live-in boyfriend and love of her life. And is in fact, the Julius Pepperwood to her Jessica Night.

The principal looks at her watch. “Okay girls, the bell is about to ring any minute, so let’s get to class.” The girls groan and make their way up to the entrance. Jess hurries up the stairs, through the administration office and into the safety of her office. She catches her breath and replays the scene that just happened. She fishes out her phone from her purse and pulls up a new message to Nick.

 **Jess** : Jessica Night just got recognized. Looks like you won’t be the only one signing autographs.

She sets down her phone and begins her daily tasks knowing Nick is writing all day and likely won’t respond for a while. To her surprise, her phone dings only two minutes later.

 **Nick** : You should be signing more autographs than me. Jessica Night is the reason Julius gets out of bed every morning. Without you, there wouldn’t be one.

She is still amazed that after all these years, Nick manages to make her feel like the most important woman in the world. Even when they weren’t together, he still put her first.

 **Jess** : Get to work, you clown. I love you.

Jess sets down her phone and heads out to do the morning announcements.

\-----

The rest of the day, Jess only had minor occurrences of her newfound fame. When she realized word was starting spread and more students were noticing her in the halls, she tried to avoid leaving her office at all. Which wasn’t difficult, because she was the principal and didn’t have classes of her own to teach.

After checking that the coast was clear, she speed-walked across campus to her car.

Jess walks in the loft and kicks her flats to the side.

“Nick, I’m home,” she announces. She makes her way to the couch and plops down with a huff, still trying to figure out how she’ll be able to manage an entire school with her new image.

After a few minutes to herself, Nick emerges from his office in jeans and a t-shirt. He’s learned over the years that putting on pants actually helps his productivity throughout the day. “Hey Jessica Night, how did the rest of your day go?” Nick plops himself down next to her and she leans into him.

“Pretty strange. I avoided my students, but even the teachers started to ask me questions when they caught wind that my boyfriend is one of America’s hottest authors right now.”

“I don’t know about hot, but I am pretty handsome,” he jokes.

Jess playfully shoves him. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah. I guess neither of us really prepared for it. I especially didn’t expect Pepperwood to sell, let alone, become popular.”

“Well I had no doubts that you were going to make it,” Jess states matter-of-factly.

A small grin creeps up on his face and he points his head down trying to hide it. Jessica has always been his biggest supporter and sometimes he still can’t believe how lucky he got. She leans in and gives him a quick kiss then gets up from the couch.

“I don’t feel like making dinner tonight. Are you cool with Italian?”

\------

The next day Jess is at her desk reviewing the field trip schedule. A teacher approaches the already open door and lightly taps against the wood. She takes a shy step in holding a Pepperwood book behind her back. Jess normally tries to keep an open-door policy to make her students and colleagues feel welcome, but the past two days have made her begin to rethink that decision. She looks up to see one of the science teachers, Mrs. Janowski, at her desk holding the book with a toothy grin plastered on her face.

“Good morning Anna. What can I do for you?” She asks already knowing where this is heading, but trying to stay positive.

“Ms. Day, my son is a huge fan of The Pepperwood Chronicles and he would absolutely love it if I got THE Jessica Night to sign his copy.”

“Oh umm.” Jess is hesitant, but before she can answer, the teacher continues.

“His birthday is this weekend and I thought this would be a one-of-a-kind present.”

“Well if it’s for his birthday, how can I say no?” Jess pulls out a marker from her desk and scribbles her signature and a Happy Birthday on the dedication page. “Anna, can you keep this between you and I? It’s just that I don’t want to distract the other teachers from their days, especially the students.”

“Oh totally,” Ms. Janowski says. “This will stay between you and me.” She winks at Jess and turns away.

“Wait, what did that wink mean?... Ms. Janowski, can you tell me what that meant?” It’s no use as she’s left the admin office. “Oh man.”

A few hours later, the principal hears a quick rap on her door followed by someone narrowly sliding their way in. (She eventually closed her door so she could focus on getting some work done). When she looked up, she couldn’t catch a look of the face on the mystery man who slipped through until he turned around. His eyes are shielded by dark sunglasses and a plain blue baseball cap, but she knew that disguise anywhere. “Hey Miller, what are you doing here?”

“How’d you know it was me? This is disguise is foolproof.” Nick says baffled, and a little disappointed she figured him out.

“I vividly remember a time you wore that exact outfit and tried to catch someone whom you thought was trying to kill me.” She says standing and greeting him with a kiss. “So, what brings you to my office? You always feel like you’re in trouble when you’re here.”

“Well that may be true, but I figured I could have lunch with my princi _pal_ and it wouldn’t be so bad.” He says pulling a take-out bag from behind his back.

They eat and talk about their day so far. Nick tells her about the meeting he had with his publisher and the interesting phone call he had with Winston in which he was panicking about the menu for His and Ally’s wedding. Jess tells Nick about the teacher asking her to autograph her son’s book.

“Oh, that reminds me!” Nick nearly jumps out of his chair. “My publisher told me they’ve seen a slight- but sudden- increase in Pepperwood sales in the last few days. I don’t know if it’s all from this school, but I’ll bet you had a lot to do with it, Jess!” He says with a jovial smile on his face.

“Nick, this was all you. You wrote the book; your work produced the sales. I’m so proud of you.” Jess says, but he can still hear some worry hidden in her voice. There’s something she’s not saying.

“What is it, Day?” He sits back down so that they are at eye level again.

“Nothing. I’m super happy for you!” She puts on her biggest smile.

“Yeah, but something is bothering you too. So, tell me what’s going on. I want to help.”

She looks into his eyes and remembers who she fell in love with. She knows she can tell him anything, and they’ll work through whatever it is because they’re in this together.

“I _really_ don’t want to make this about me. But I can’t help but think about how, from now on, I’m going to be seen as Jessica Night or Nick Miller’s girlfriend instead of just me: Principal Jessica Day.”

“Well I could kill you off if that would help. That’s actually the first things my publisher suggested to me.” Jess giggles at his attempt to lighten the mood. Nick will do or say anything to hear that giggle.

They fall into another comfortable silence trying to come up with a solution.

Nick suddenly jumps from his seat, “I got it! Let’s host a Q&A for the school.”

Jess looks at him quizzically.

“Maybe if we just answer any questions they have about the characters or my writing, they’ll start to normalize you again instead of seeing you as the Zombie Detective’s- very sexy- partner.”

Jess’s cheeks turn a slight tint of red, but she keeps her composure. “But Nick, I don’t want to take away from your writing time. Besides, wouldn’t your publisher be upset that you’re doing free publicity?”

“Nonsense! He’ll just be happy when this results in sales. And I want to do this for you, Jess... well and a little for me too, because I am the genius who wrote it.” Nick pretends to flip his imaginary hair.

Jess pauses to consider everything. She doesn’t see _a lot_ that can go wrong with it, and Nick might be right, maybe it will humanize her again. Plus, it’s publicity for him too. “Okay, she says. “Let’s do it, Miller!” She gives Nick a high five and they finish the rest of their lunch.

\-----  
Two weeks later Nick is pacing backstage in the school auditorium while Jess tries to calm him down. He’s done readings and Q&A’s before for local bookstores, and even was interviewed on the news, but he hasn’t had a forum for a crowd this size. Schmidt is peering through a crack in the curtain looking at the crowd. They asked him to moderate, because he would be mostly unbiased and they thought it’d be easier having someone they knew ask the questions.

The vice principal comes backstage and informs them that all of the students are just about settled and they will start in two minutes.

Jess takes Nick by the shoulders and makes him face her, “Look at me, Miller. It’s just you and me out there, and if you get stuck, Schmidt and I will be right there to help.” If she’s being honest, she’s a little nervous too, but she’s trying to stay strong for Nick. And these are her students, after all.

The vice principal introduces them onto the stage and the three friends take their places in the chairs set up for them.

“Hello, my name is Schmidt. You might know me as the character, Schmidth,” he says proudly. “I’ve been friends with Nick and Principal Day for a long time. I even like to think I had something to do with them getting together.” Jess coughs to remind Schmidt to stay focused.

They begin with Nick talking about the book and his writing process for it. He tells the eager students about the origins of Julius Pepperwood, leaving out the part of him and Jess trespassing her student's home. He animatedly describes his time in New Orleans. He missed his friends a lot when he was away, and putting them in his book was a way to stay connected. He told them what is was like knowing that he actually completed something, especially of this magnitude. Finally, they open the floor up for questions from the students. Dozens of hands shoot up at the same time, and Nick and Jess silently brace for what the middle schoolers will throw at them.

The questions start off mild. They ask questions like, “When will you publish the next one?” And “What’s going to happen to Pepperwood next?” They even ask Schmidt and Jess their opinions about the book and their fictional portrayals. Schmidt is ecstatic to provide his input. Jess feels lucky to have such a strong-willed, independent woman based off of her. But she also makes sure to explain the ways she’s different from Jessica Night.

Then the questions start to take a turn, asking more about Nick and Jess’s relationship. Some questions the two are happy to answer, “How did you guys meet?” As they recall the day that Schmidt chose her as their new roommate and Nick didn’t want her there. Other, more personal questions, they try to answer with as little detail as they can.

One overly-cheery girl asks them to tell their love story from the beginning. Before Nick and Jess start to awkwardly stumble, Schmidt steps in. 

“That story takes ten years to tell. Maybe they’ll write a separate book about it. Next question, you, the chubby kid in the back.”

The boy stands up scowling at Schmidt before diverting his attention back to Nick. “Mr. Miller, if Pepperwood and Jessica Night get married in the next book, does that mean you guys will too?”

The room goes silent waiting in anticipation for his answer. On stage, you could cut the tension with a knife. Schmidt leans in a little closer waiting for his best friend to spill a secret. Nick feels the sweat slowly start to pool on his back. Jess can see his breathing become more restricted. It’s not obvious to the untrained eye, but she’s seen it enough times to know that he’s secretly panicking. Jess leans in and takes a grip on his hand. Normally, she wouldn’t show displays of affection in front of her students, but she momentarily forgets about them. Nick looks into her frosted blue eyes and takes a deep breath. She didn’t have to say anything, but he knows she’s reminding him that she’s with him and she’s not going anywhere.

Jess raises the mic to her mouth to answer for him, but Nick jumps in before her. “Jessica and Pepperwood are going to get married. That’s been the plan all along. I don’t know when that will happen; maybe the next book or the one after that. And someday, Principal Day and I will, too. But it might be after or it might be sooner than the book. We’re okay with taking our time right now.”

The vice principal re-enters the stage and concludes their time. The audience applauds and Jessica makes Nick take a bow before the three of them leave the stage.

——-

Jess is on the couch working through her DVR and Nick is in his office writing. He typically tries not to work on weekends so he can spend time with Jess and his friends, but he had an idea that he had to write out.

Nick comes out of his office releasing a satisfied stretch.

“Good session?” she asks amused from her spot.

“Yeah, really good.” he says as he drops next to her on the couch and pulls her into him under his arm. “Between helping Winston plan his wedding and the forum two weeks ago, all this talk about marriage lately just pulled something out of me, I guess.”

Jess normally doesn’t need to know all of the upcoming Pepperwood plans Nick has for the next book. She likes to be surprised. So, she’s okay with waiting until it comes out, or at least for the first draft. But she can’t help but wonder if Nick has plans for marriage for Jessica Night or Jessica Day in his future. Before she can ask, Nick beats her with his own question.

“Hey, how’s the fame monster at school? Are they still treating you differently?”

“Not so much anymore. Sometimes they will ask me to tell them what’s going to happen in the next chapter or at the end of the book, but Principal Day can answer those- not Jessica Night. 

“That’s great!” Nick exclaims.

“I do get the occasional autograph request, but I actually kind of like that.” She says with a small smile hinting on her face.

“So I guess we’ll just have to do it every year,” he jokes.

“Who knows, maybe if you ever get to do a book tour, we can just answer all their questions on the talk shows first.”

“Yeah, like Pepperwood would ever become that big,” he says as they laugh to themselves. They fall into a comfortable silence both toying with the idea in their head.

Nick leans in to kiss her head and she turns back to the baking competition on TV. His eyes stay on her. He absorbs everything he loves about her, her natural beauty, her kindness, how much she supports him. He won’t let her go again.

“Jessica?” Nick squeaks.

Jess turns her head and sees that Nick is already staring at her. He’s calm and confident.

“Yeah?”

“I do plan to...you know, marry you someday. It wasn’t something I said just to get them off my back.”

Blue eyes stare into deep brown eyes and nothing needs to be said. They know what they have, and they know where they are.

“I know, Pepperwood” she smiled. She kisses him soft and passionate, then cuddles deeper into his side.


End file.
